Passing the Torch
by gwenstacey
Summary: A minor skirmish during a routine border patrol leaves Genma, Raidou, and Aoba pondering the future of Konoha and the young shinobi that will grow to take their place.


The moment the wind stopped, Genma knew something was wrong. There are two types of stillness that exist in the world, the natural and the unnatural, and this was definitely the latter. There were no birds, or insects, or movements in the underbrush. For whatever reason, everything had just stopped.

He didn't bother to try and hide, whatever caused the stillness undoubtedly already knew he was there, instead he simply slipped into battle stance and readied a weapon for what ever might come at him. He didn't have to wait long. Within seconds a kunai came racing through the air towards him, followed quickly by the enemy that had thrown it and two teammates.

Genma deflected the kunai but didn't bother to take any measures that might deter his attackers. He enjoyed the look of confusion all three sported when they realized this, they had undoubtedly heard of Konoha's unquenchable will of fire and wondered why one of her shinobi would give up without a fight so close to his home village. The look didn't last long however, as their faces barely had a chance to register shock when the bushes behind Genma erupted with a hail of weapons and his teammates.

Genma toed one of the corpses with the edge of his sandal before turning to the young woman who must be responsible for the people turned pin cushions now lying on the forest floor.

"Ya' know, when we find enemies willing to attack while out on patrol it's usually a good idea to keep one of them alive for questioning," he said, raising a brow at her.

"Oh I wouldn't worry to much," Tenten replied, "I've heard even the dead can't keep secrets from Ibiki." She waggled her eye brows at him for effect before rapidly flicking out two scrolls, collecting all her weapons into one and the bodies into another.

Genma looked to Raidou for back up but the other man just shrugged nonchalantly.

"If Ibiki has a problem with getting dead bodies instead of live ones we'll just let her explain her reasons, he'd probably be flattered." Raidou responded.

Genma noticed that for as flippant as his friend sounded there was still a troubled line to his brow.

"They're going to surpass us you know," Raidou continued once Tenten had moved out of easy ear shot, "And quickly too. But they still have so much to learn."

Genma nodded and glanced up as Aoba shifted in the trees above them.

"We still have time though," The last member of the team chimed in, "Part of it there's no choice but for them to learn by trial and error, but what we can teach them we still have time too. Just so long as we can get them to listen to old guys like us."

All three men chuckled.

"If you want them to do that we best hope the don't 'know' as much as we did at that age." Genma said smiling and shaking his head.

"Well even if they do," Raidou chimed in, looking as though his spirits were considerably lighter, "At least we can hope they remember what they're told until they're old enough to realize it has some value."

The other two nodded and as one they turned to look towards the path Tenten had taken ahead of them before falling back into the shadowing position they had been in earlier, this time with Tenten as the bait instead of Genma.

"They'll do well though." Genma whispered as they got closer, "They'll give us something to be proud of."

He was just barely able to hear the murmurs of assent that came from the shadows on either side of him.

AN: I wrote something! I had to write something just to prove to myself I still could, and this quick little snippet is the result. I proofread it, but the whole thing was done in about 15mins so I apologize for any errors I missed. Life has been chaos, and if you are waiting on one of my other stories I promise I have not abandoned them; none of my writing is abandoned, it's just on a temporary hiatus until I can do the stories true justice. Thank you for reading!


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